One of the undercurrents at the recent UK MMT Conference in Leeds was the apparent unwillingness of MMT economists to acknowledge their mistake in dealing with international trade. In our new book – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure (published July 2024) – we devote a chapter to this issue. There are various…
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Here’s a shocker: The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast during the height of the pandemic, according to a new study. Researchers say that the country, which saw more than 1.1 million Covid deaths, could have been spared an estimated 118,000 to 248,000 more lives. The research from University of Virginia public policy and economics professor Christopher J Ruhm, published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Forum, analyzed mortality data between 2020 and 2022, comparing it to a baseline of 2017 through 2019. “These study findings do not support the views of those opposing COVID-19 restrictions who erroneously believe the restrictions did not work,” Ruhm writes.
Authors Peter Dreier, who teaches politics at Occidental College and Maurice Isserman who teaches history at Hamilton College warn people who care about the Palestinian people not to protest at the DNC next month if they don’t want to set back their cause: In a democracy, protest movements can play a vital role in reshaping the national debate on important issues. But they have to hone their message and choose when and how to make their case. There were major protests at all three Democratic conventions in the 1960s. Two of them eventually got the results they hoped for. One backfired. In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was nominated in Los Angeles, civil rights protesters, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., carefully orchestrated a 5,000-person march and daily pickets at the convention demanding a strong pro-civil rights plank in the Democratic platform. It was a first at a convention, and Kennedy was cautiously supportive, though it took several more years of protests before he embraced the Civil Rights Act, which became law in 1964, the year after his assassination. When Lyndon B.
Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase “bread and circuses” nearly 2,000 years ago for the extravagant entertainment the Roman Empire used to distract attention from imperial policies that caused widespread discontent. Imagine the lavish banquets, gladiatorial bouts, use and abuse of young men and women for the pleasure of the rich, and so much more that characterized the later years of that empire. And none of it seems that far off from the situation we, in these increasingly dis-United States, find ourselves in today. Although the Roman Empire described itself as being in favor of life and peace, the various Caesars and their enablers regularly dealt death and destruction in their wake. They spread the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace),... Read more
Source: Project 2025 appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
Steve from Accounts, otherwise known as the office-know-it-all, has been spotted hanging out in the break room flicking through an Olympic program in an attempt to lure people in to a one-sided chat about the Paris Olympics. ”Last month it... Read More ›
I watched the video of this yesterday and it made me sick. Sonya Massey’s last words before a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed her in her Springfield, Illinois, home earlier this month were, “I’m sorry.” The 36-minute body camera footage released Monday depicting her July 6 killing showed her interaction with the officers she called for help began calmly enough. At times, it even appeared to veer into light-hearted conversation as they responded to her 1 a.m. local time report of a possible home invasion. But the tone changed suddenly just under 15 minutes into the exchange after the 36-year-old Black woman went to remove a pot of boiling water from her stove at the direction of Deputy Sean Grayson, who informed her with a laugh as she did so that he was distancing himself to get away “from your steaming hot water.” “Away from the hot steaming water?
The killing of ultra-nationalist Ukrainian politician Iryna Farion at the hands of a Neo-Nazi is filled with irony. Linked to the Maidan false flag massacre, Farion was instrumental in bringing fascist forces into the mainstream. On July 19, prominent Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Iryna Farion, a former lawmaker with the fascist Svoboda party, was shot dead in Lviv. A longtime advocate of purging her country of all Russian speakers through violence, she and her political faction were directly linked to the false […]
The post Ultra-nationalist linked to Maidan false flag assassinated first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Ultra-nationalist linked to Maidan false flag assassinated appeared first on The Grayzone.
I know most of you would rather stick chopsticks in your ears than watch an entire Trump rally. But you should know that he’s actually getting worse. And he’s admitting it. Rather than post all the highlights, you might want to watch this video which also features some clever commentary: He also appeared at a Bitcoin convention. Oh dear:
Rupert Murdoch demands loyalty from his followers, not competence. A repost from August 28, 2022 The way News Corp operates must be traced to Murdoch himself for he has told us that ‘for better or worse (News Corp) is a reflection of my own thinking, my character and my values’. Let me give some examples Continue reading »
Nobody does it better: Fox viewers don’t get to hear this normally. It takes someone skilled to do it and Buttigieg is very skilled. If you follow the Never Trumper Sarah Longwell and her focus groups (which are fascinating) you have heard for months now that the Democrats needed to get the surrogates out on the road. I think some of her rationale was that Biden wasn’t doing a good job of making he case and so needed to be shored up. But it’s important even with Harris at the top of the ticket. As you can see, Buttigieg is just excellent. Here’s a guy speaking to the non-Fox audience and he’s excellent too: Another one: Those last three are auditioning for VP right now and they’re all good. And there are a lot more where that came from who aren’t on that list: Whitmer, Newsom, AOC, Wes Moore, Pritzker and on and on. The Democrats have a very impressive bench. The Republicans have imploded leaving them with people like Vance and Elon Musk — nutcases just like Trump. The battle for the soul of the country as Biden has always said is now a battle for the brain of the country.
Trump should have listened to him Politico playbook: The WSJ editorial board is joining the pile-on over Sen. JD VANCE’s (R-Ohio) comments about “childless cat ladies.” In a tough piece posted last night, Paul Gigot and colleagues call the comment “the sort of smart-aleck crack that gets laughs in certain right-wing male precincts” but that “doesn’t play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.” They see the speed and breadth of the coverage of Vance’s remark as evidence “that this is Mr. Vance’s first big cultural impression, and not a good one.” They are unimpressed with Vance’s efforts to clean things up on Megyn Kelly’s podcast yesterday (“he wasn’t at all apologetic”), and they come away with this surprising conclusion about the episode: “One possibility is that at some level Mr. Vance really doesn’t respect people who make different life choices.” And then they move on to attack some of Vance’s other past ideas.
It’s raining coconuts “There are years when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. This was one of those decades-long weeks,” Wisconsin Democrats chair Ben Wikler tweeted on Friday. Politico at the start of a new week: Kamala Harris pulled in $200 million in her first week as a presidential candidate, a staggering figure the campaign points to as evidence of the intensity surrounding her nascent bid with 100 days to go before Election Day. What a difference a week makes, Politico not-so-trenchantly observes. With Harris ascending to the top of the ticket, the party saw mammoth fundraising, including topping the $100 million mark in her first full day as the Democrats’ likely nominee. The campaign soon announced she had secured enough verbal commitments from delegates to secure the party’s nomination ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month. Of the seven-day haul, two-thirds of the donations came from first-time donors, something the campaign pointed to as evidence of overwhelming grassroots support for her historic White House bid.
We won’t move on! “Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore,” Donald Trump told The Believers’ Summit, hosted by Turning Point Action on Friday in West Palm Beach, Fla. “Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore…In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.” Democrats piled on Donald Trump’s comments to the Christian nationalists (no, not conservative Christians) on Friday: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is running for Senate, shared the clip of Trump’s speech on X, writing, “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called Trump’s comments “terrifying.” And Rep.
During the Star Trek x Doctor Who panel, Russell T. Davies and Robert Kurtzman put their geek bromance on display to bring fandoms together.
What’s confusing about the woke movement is that it expresses traditional left-wing emotions: empathy for the marginalized, indignation at the plight of the oppressed, determination that historical wrongs should be righted. Those emotions, however, are derailed by a range of theoretical assumptions that ultimately undermine them. Theory is such a nebulous and trendy concept that […]
I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows tooIt gives me a sense of enormous well-being -from “Parklife”, by Blur I know this is kind of a personal question, but…have you ever bathed in a forest? I have, many times. Now, I’m not talking about “skinny-dipping” (get your mind out of the gutter). The Japanese have a term for it… shinrin-yoku, which roughly translates to “forest bathing”: Whether you call it a fitness trend or a mindfulness practice (or a bit of both), what exactly is forest bathing? The term emerged in Japan in the 1980s as a physiological and psychological exercise called shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing” or “taking in the forest atmosphere”). The purpose was twofold: to offer an eco-antidote to tech-boom burnout and to inspire residents to reconnect with and protect the country’s forests. The Japanese quickly embraced this form of ecotherapy. In the 1990s, researchers began studying the physiological benefits of forest bathing, providing the science to support what we innately know: time spent immersed in nature is good for us.
NIKKI, a rescued green sea turtle, is making great progress in the care of Coffs Coast Wildlife Sanctuary. Nikki was found on Boambee Beach in January, entangled in fishing line with an injured flipper, requiring immediate rehabilitation from float syndrome and malnourishment, and eventual surgical intervention to facilitate her return to the wild. Advertise with...
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